Off Topic Australia on fire

Yep that's the one. They've told people in town to take shelter, and set up an evacuation centre. I'm madly trying to create more fire breaks around my house and sheds at the moment!
 
Thanks guys, I'm alright. Thought I was going to be up all night working, but then the wind shifted and the fire stopped moving this way. Got to sleep about 3am. Up again at 7am - the wind is likely to be back this afternoon and even worse tomorrow, so I need to keep working. Drinking lots of coffee:). They closed the highway, so no one is coming in or out of the region, there's no traffic at all apart from the occasional emergency vehicle with lights flashing, it's quite peaceful right now lol. Except I keep thinking it's raining because of all the noise on the roof, but it's just leaves and embers falling.
 
Stay safe mate, hard to say it but I will, you can always rebuild but you have to be with us to do it. I am sure you have your own line when it is time to pull up stumps and leave, make sure you trust your instincts, if you think you need to leave...LEAVE. Keep us posted mate.
 
Praying for all our down under brothers and sisters. Stay safe, and good luck.
 
Stay safe Brother....wish you were getting what we've had here 3 straight days of rain I expect more later in the day/evening!!!
 
The RFS posted last night that if your plan is to leave early, leave now. I want to stay and defend the property though, as I'm pretty well set up. I've done a lot of fire break clearing in the past for exactly this event. There are a lot of cattle properties between me and the fire front, which are mainly just grass that's been eaten down to the dirt. So the main thing I'm worried about is spot fires.
 
Currawong said:
Fire conditions are pretty bad in Australia at the moment. Here's a map of current fires in New South Wales:

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Last nigh
Click to expand...

I'm in Newcastle, though you can only see "castle' on the map. The constant smoke laying around has been a pain but otherwise nothing too serious. We are surround by heavy smoke though no matter which direction we drive.
A friends family further north had their farm property completely destroyed.
 
These fires are nuts. I feel horrible for all you guys down under and the people out in CA that lost everything earlier this year. My neighbor's house burnt to the ground once and that's the worst fire I've ever seen. I actually can't fathom the size of these wildfires. I have such respect for the wildland firefighters and pilots that have to fight these fires. That takes serious balls and commitment.
 
At times it seems the planet is on fire—so much destruction. Especially horrific is the prospect of this being the new normal. Truly apocalyptic. Please manage your risk carefully, brother—would hate to lose you.
 
It's pretty bad today. Strong winds have come up and the fire is getting closer. I'm pretty well prepped at this point. Also there's about a hundred firies, heavy equipment and fire bombers working on it.
 
Spent part of the morning helping my neighbor get his excavator going so we could move it out of the bush to safety (it needed some work)
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Horses watching the excavator approaching
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In case we get hungry
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In the short grass - as safe as can be in the circumstances. I'll go over there later and pour about 40 litres of water down into the guts of it to cover all the oil that's sitting around under the engine, because that's the main danger for it going up if the fire passes through.
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I just had a look on the Bureau of Meteorology website and you can see the fires on the sat images - http://satview.bom.gov.au/

I'm assuming the one near you is the southern most visible one just near the lower cloud bank. It's really noticeable when you playback the image sequence.
 
Those fires look like they're all in the Blue Mtns area. I'm further south under all that cloud cover.
 
Hopefully they'll get some breaks dozed in beforehand.

Just when our season here comes to an end, I have to watch it unfold down there. I'm pretty tired of fires.

Good Luck and STAY SAFE guys!
 
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